McLain House – Betsy Sweeny Blog & Services | Preservationist, Historian in Wheeling, WV

Category: McLain House

May 8, 2023

The Kitchen Reveal Part II

This is Part II of the full kitchen reveal. To read about the layout and cabinetry, check out Part I here.

Once the layout was decided, the cabinets were in, and the bulk of the budget spent, I was prepared to take my time with the finishing touches… Just as soon as I was over the last hurdle, the ceiling.

The Ceiling

From the first time I saw the Mclain House, I loved the ceiling. I think it provides texture and interest and is something most houses aren’t lucky enough to still have. That said, it also was in not so great of shape, and virtually impossible to find replacement tiles for.

For those that aren’t familiar, tin ceilings, or more accurately, pressed metal ceilings, are made when a big sheet of metal is pressed with a large decorative stamp. These ceilings first appeared in the 1870s, but by the turn of the century decorative metal ceilings were all the rage. Wheeling Corrugating was the leading producer of these ceilings, meaning my ceiling was likely made just a few blocks away.

Metal ceilings came in parts, and so the cornice, decorative border, field pattern, and any other decorative elements were interchangeable. It’s common to see a pattern repeated, but rare to find a multi element ceiling exactly like another. I was able to find the field pattern in an old Wheeling Corrugating catalog, though the frame, center medallion, and cornice are different. And as cool as it was, a hundred year old catalog was not going to help me with replacement tiles.

Now, there are a few websites where you can get new pressed metal ceiling tiles in historic patterns, but none of them had mine. Another option is to take one of your originals, mail it to one of the few manufacturers in the U.S., and have them create a new custom stamp based off your sample, and then stamp as many new panels with that pattern as you need. I had hoped to do this, but for about eight panels I was consistently quoted over $10,000 and that just wasn’t going to happen. So, we went the DIY route.

Lucky for me, I live across the street from a metal artist, who had replicated metal ceilings before and offered to help me for….much less than ten grand. The process was fairly simple: almost like using a baking mold. We took down the pieces that we needed to copy, greased the backs with some cooking spray, lined them with a fine fiberglass mesh, and then mixed a two part polyester resin (insert link) and poured it in. Once it was set up we popped them out and they you have it. The new pieces aren’t perfect, and are much more brittle than metal, but once they were on the ceiling and painted I can hardly tell.

We greased the backs of the tiles, laid fine mesh, and then painted on the two part resin

During this process we found the original painted plaster ceiling behind the panels, confirming my theory that the second owners of the house- the Horkheimers, had a major role in the decorative additions to the house. The original ceiling was painted a deep green, and while I entertained the idea for a minute, I decided to paint the ceiling the same cream color as the trim.

The Appliances

From the very beginning I knew I wanted professional appliances. Despite being an only child, I have it in my head that at any time I need to be prepared to cook a dinner for 20. And now I am. The oven in particular was something I was not willing to compromise on, and when the opportunity to work with GE came along, it was an absolute dream come true. I’d had my eye on the Cafe line for quite a while, and it’s proven to be even better than I could have imagined. I’ve never been a huge stainless steel girl, so I chose white appliances with warm brassy bronze hardware. Everything about these appliances is luxurious, and I couldn’t love them more.

The Butler’s Pantry Cabinet

Ah, the Butler’s Pantry Cabinet. This was one piece in the kitchen that was old, but got a totally new life. This poor cabinet was held together by cobwebs when I first bought the house. Because the Butler’s Pantry had been reconfigured a bit over the years to account for basement steps and later a fridge, this cabinet was in its original space, but no longer built in as it would have been. It was filthy, missing a bottom to hold it together, and hanging on by a thread. I hired local furniture refinishers Brandon and Melissa Holmes to cut it out of the pantry, haul it back to their shop, and perform the greatest makeover ever.

The faux grain finish matched the woodwork of the house, but was so damaged it ended up having to be completely removed and replicated. The missing base was constructed and offered some much needed stability. Each shelf was lovingly stripped and repainted, as was the poplar countertop. Because we knew this would be a workhorse piece in my kitchen, all of the lead paint was removed, and only food safe finishes were used in their place. I love the patina of the wood and the squeaky old hardware. When I hired Brandon and Melissa, I knew I wanted to save and use the old piece, but none of us could really tell just how beautiful it was. Refinished, it now sits as the centerpiece of the kitchen, and I’m so happy we saved it.

The Wallpaper

During my kitchen construction sabbatical, I took weeks to agonize over the wallpaper that would pull the space together. My inspiration for the entire kitchen came from deVOL, and so I had my heart set on an organic, leafy pattern. That didn’t stop me from ordering over a dozen samples and polling everyone that walked through my doors.

Ultimately, as is so often the case, the house told me exactly what it needed. I wanted a wallpaper that worked with the features of the house, not against them. That dark cherry faux graining is not a color you would typically think “kitchen”, and I needed a paper that complimented it, rather than forced it to scream RED. My first round of samples, though lovely, did not achieve this effect. In the second round, the Anglessy paper from Rebel Walls stood out immediately. Somehow managing to incorporate all the warm tones from my hardware, the cream of the trim and, most importantly, the faux bois. Seeing how rich and purpley the wood reads next to it had me completely sold, and my mom and I were back in the wallpaper hanging business in no time.

The Finishes

For an in depth account detailing the how and why of my finishes, you can read this previous blog post. I worked with Ferguson to pull it all together, from lighting to hardware to faucets.

The hardware was the most important feature for me to make sure felt appropriate in the space. Some pieces would be on new cabinetry, while others replaced what was missing on the originals, and so picking something that worked seamlessly was a challenge. Once that was decided, I was able to layer in the sink, lighting, and faucet. Somehow, it ended up working together even better than I could have expected.

The Outstanding Items

Now, you may have noticed one major element that I haven’t addressed in this post… countertops. The countertops for this space have proven to be the greatest challenge, and one I honestly still haven’t dealt with. You may have also noticed I haven’t gone into great detail about the color I chose to paint the cabinets, this is directly tied to the aforementioned issue.

Throughout the process I had my heart set on butcher block, and part of me still does. The only problem being, I know what butcher block costs. It is extraordinarily cheap. Yet, ask anyone to fabricate a piece of butcherblock and install it and it triples in price. I simply cannot justify paying granite prices from some laminated pieces of wood.

Now you may be thinking, “well then, why not DIY it?”. Believe me, I thought about it. And if I had a brand new, level, new construction house, I would. But this countertop needs to be built up, fit a stretch of salvaged cabinets, and have a whole cut for a sink retrofitted into said salvaged cabinetry. Anyone that’s been around for a while knows I am not an enthusiastic carpenter, and so all that coupled with not being 100% sold on the surface, largely eliminated butcher block as an option.

That brings me to my next choice- Marble. NEVER could I have guessed the abject horror that would cross the faces of salesmen everywhere when I say I want marble. I am constantly warned of the stains, the scratches, the precious nature of this material that renders it practically useless. Frankly, no one in the valley really carries much marble, and when they do, they price it in such a way so that everyone is clear that it shouldn’t be considered a serious option. I actually stood in a stoneyard, while the lot attendant called his boss to try and convince him to sell me a piece of marble. We parted ways.

And so ultimately, I still do not have my sink or countertops installed. I am hopeful that in a month or so when things slow down at work, I’ll be able to hunt down a piece of marble or soapstone that fits my needs. Only then, will I be able to commit and comment on my choice of cabinet color. Or who knows, maybe there will be a Kitchen Reveal Part III

Because I know you all want to know, here are the links to the products installed in the space.

Hinkley light: https://www.build.com/hinkley-lighting-4534/s209901?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Generation lighting light: https://www.build.com/generation-lighting-cc1315/s1706313?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Top Knobs cabinet pull: https://www.build.com/top-knobs-m2223/s1722763?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Top Knobs cabinet latch: https://www.build.com/top-knobs-m1785/s601892?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Signature Hardware faucet: https://www.build.com/signature-hardware-948399/s1689621?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Signature Hardware sink: https://www.build.com/signature-hardware-927988-36-1/s1490868?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Signature Hardware basket strainer: https://www.build.com/signature-hardware-926725-1/s1471917?uid=3457582&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Signature Hardware basket strainer and disposal stopper: https://www.build.com/signature-hardware-926725/s1471923?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

InSinkErator Garbage Disposal: https://www.build.com/insinkerator-excel/s502623?uid&utm_source=influencer&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=betsy-sweeny-fy22&utm_bg=build&utm_reach=national&utm_content=home_blog

Anglessy Wallpaper https://www.wallpaperdirect.com/us/products/rebel-walls/anglessy/179519

May 2, 2023

The Kitchen Reveal- Part I

It’s been nearly a year since I started in the kitchen, and finally, we have the reveal. The upside to designing and coordinating everything in your home individually is you get exactly what you want. The downside, at least in my case, is that you end up taking 3x as long, still have some odds and ends to tie up, and consistently backburner your own to-do list in favor of the projects you’ve been hired to manage. Oh well, such is life. I’m just happy that by the 2022 holiday season I had a space I loved, that once brought to life was even better than I could have imagined

The Before

So let’s all refresh our memories: This is what we started with. When I bought the house in 2020, the kitchen was one of the rougher areas, with a good deal of water damage as evidenced by the walls and ceiling. A lot of this came from the missing gutters, so once we took care of that, and repointed the entire back wall, the space had a full year to dry out. Six months in we added HVAC, so the temperature was more consistent, and for a long time, that’s about all you could say about the kitchen. It had a sink, so naturally, it became a pseudo workshop.

The Layout

As a preservationist and someone that believes in respecting and enhancing the house you have, I knew I was not going to dramatically alter the floorplan. I identified the architectural elements in the space: The two doors, pantry doorway, two windows, and curved wall, and marked those as fixed placements. Then, I listed the furniture and appliance constraints: I wanted to maintain the perfectly good salvaged cabinets, and avoid relocating the plumbing, I needed the oven on the one wall that would allow for an easy exterior vent, and I was set on breathing new life into the old cabinet from the Butler’s Pantry.

Knowing those things were non-negotiables, I played with the layout in my head for the better part of a year. Welcoming the advice and suggestions of architects, designers, loved ones (and to a lesser extent, strangers on the internet), many advised me to remove the window facing the alley to allow for a full L-shaped stretch of windows. This was a nonstarter.

For a minute, I considered creating a large cased opening in the pantry wall, retaining the curve but fully taking over the Butler’s Pantry space. This was a plan for quite some time, until finally reality set it. I’d be taking out a usable utilitarian space, just to create a wall of cabinets. Why not just replace the existing wall with cabinets, thus maintaining the original floorplan and ever so slightly encroaching upon the pantry space. That felt right, and so I grabbed some chalk and set out to find a cabinet maker.

The Cabinets

The Cabinetry in the space was a challenge, because pretty much all of my high-value, usable new cabinetry would be contained in the wall. A small three drawer set would complete the dead corner by the pantry cabinet, and that was it. I toyed with the idea of DIYing with ready to assemble cabinets, and called a few local showrooms before finally biting the bullet and calling Shutler Cabinets, a custom shop just South of Wheeling, in Moundsville.

It was pretty much love at first sight for Shutler and me. Upon first inspection, after explaining all of my ideas, Dave Shutler looked at me and said, “What do you do for a living? This is not how most of my design consults go?” I explained my background and how the house had become a thing, and I immediately saw the excitement on his face. This is more of a rarity than it should be, but as a young female in this industry, my standards are more often met with resistance and even outright condescension more than they are excitement. I could tell right off the bat that Dave respected my expertise, truly cared about his craft, and would actually enjoy figuring out the challenges of the Mclain House with me. So as you can imagine I opened my checkbook and closed my eyes and the rest was history. When I went to the showroom and was asked why I didn’t bring Marshall… safe to say that only solidified my respect for the whole company.

The Design

I knew I was looking for inset doors-where the cabinet door fits within the frame rather than closing in front of it. This is standard in historic cabinetry and to me, speaks to a higher quality. The day you discover the difference between an inset and a surface mount door is the day your budget goes out the window.

We based the cabinet design off of the extant cabinets in the space. Salvaged by the prior owner, those cabinets were completely appropriate for the age of the house and likely indistinguishable from what would have originally been installed. I do have one historic photo of the kitchen shared with me by the Antonucci family. It shows their Aunt Mary standing over the sink, and while I channel her spirit often by making big Sunday dinners, I did not want to channel her 50s metal cabinets.

Mary and unknown woman standing in the McClain House Kitchen. I think this is in the same spot as my current sink

Instead, we went with totally flat panel drawers with cup pulls, and because I had several different profiles of panels happening across various historic pieces, a shaker door with a simple bevel. A panel door without the panel if you will.

Though I was limited by the space in terms of what kind of cabinetry I could have, I can honestly say now having lived with it for several months, I got everything that I wanted. I took an inventory of the way I use my kitchen, and the products that I own, and worked from there. It’s too much to get into in this post, but one day I’ll do a rundown of what I consider to be the ultimate kitchen cabinet wish list and what to put in them.

Once the cabinets were in, I was really able to take a breath. I had some temporary appliances to use before my big shipment from GE arrived, and I spent my time considering how all of the elements in the space could work together to form one cohesive room. More on that in part II

January 1, 2023

2022 Wrapped

Happy New Year! I’d hoped to put this out before 2022 was officially over, but like most things I got wrapped up in more pressing matters and didn’t get around to it.

But for the first day of 2023, let’s take a look back at what was accomplished in 2022, and what I hope to accomplish in 2023.

Last year, I wrote a blog post recapping the highlights of the year, and setting a list of priorities for the year ahead. You can read that post here.

This year, I’m taking a cue from the OG home bloggers, Chris Loves Julia, and giving myself a report card, covering what was, and wasn’t, completed this year.

The Kitchen B+

I gave myself a B+ for the kitchen project this year. I’d hoped to have it completed during the spring, and the reality is it wrapped up (kind of) in early fall. I say kind of because well, I still haven’t found countertops or installed my sink and faucet, put the baseboards in, or photographed and revealed the space for you all! What really threw me for a loop on this project was the total unwillingness for anyone to install marble or butcher block locally, and a particularly exciting photoshoot that paused everything in September. I know, excuses excuses.

The best photo I can take without professional assistance

The Laundry Room Closet C-

I admit I’m a bit disappointed in myself for not finishing this one. We finished the drywall, paint, lighting, hanging rods, drawer sets, and installed new appliances, making a very functional space. What I haven’t finished because I dread it with every fiber of my being is the finish carpentry on the drawer sets, installing trim, plastering the inside of the existing closet, and photographing and blogging the space for you all. A few weeks into this project it became abundantly clear that my laundry room was approximately 85 degrees out of plumb, and that really took the wind out of my sails. In 2023 I am mentally preparing myself for this, and sucking it up and putting this project to bed.

Wiring the Third Floor D

This project gets a D, but a forgiving D, since I am at the mercy of my generous and lovely electrician friend’s schedule, and he bought his own cheap old house in 2022, so NBD. I did however purchase ALL of the materials (about $750) and we’ve created the layout, so I have no doubt this will get knocked out in the near future.

MISC Projects B

When I made this goal, I expected it would look a bit different, like cleaning hardware, touching up paint, maybe organizing the mini house. None of those things happened, but instead, we did fully finish the bedroom closet, planted a hugely successful garden, plastered the second floor hallway, plumbed the bathtub and added a new vanity in the primary bath, did a few furniture flips, restored the front doors, and completed a little bit of much needed front landscaping. I think with a massive project like this house, you have to give yourself some grace, and when a project feels fun, or calls to you, go with it. This is supposed to be fun, remember.

Looking ahead to 2023

And so with this in mind, here are my 2023 goals

First, I do want to finish what I’ve started in the kitchen, laundry room, and wiring the third floor.

With electricity on the third floor I hope to finish a guest room up there, replace the final missing window, and get the front room organized and usable, including building a little wall to partition off the furnace from the rest of the room.

I’d also like to tackle some smaller things, like finally putting crown up in the bedroom to close the gap between the walls and ceiling, and figuring out how to hang drapes on those curved walls/windows.

And finally, I’d like to share more of my other projects with you all. The McLain house is just what I work on in my spare time, the majority of my life is actually spent on other peoples projects, and 2023 is going to be a huge year for two other projects very near and dear to my heart.

Thank you all for spending another year with me, and I hope 2023 brings us all great success and fulfillment.

December 5, 2022

Mixing Metals in the Kitchen

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Mixed metals are cool.

When I started designing the kitchen, I knew I wanted to incorporate as much brass as possible, for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I had a couple of metal tones in the kitchen that were non-negotiable because they were extant (which is a fancy historical way of saying they already existed in the house and were historic, and therefore important to me).

So here were the known metals: My brass door hardware, my historic cabinet pulls and latches, and the color of the hardware on my new appliances. All in all I was dealing with tarnished brass that might one day be shiny, lesser quality historic latches that will always be tarnished because most of their plating had worn away, cup pulls that were somewhere in the middle, and the shiny new, unique brass tone of my new appliances.

The other thing stuck in my mind when selecting finishes, was this great take on mixed metals from Chris Loves Julia. I tend to select finishes from a historic framework, but this article also made mention of choosing quality of metal over matching, which I really took to heart.

Enter, Build with Ferguson Build with Ferguson does a great job of curating many different product lines all in one place. The ability to have several kitchen items sourced and shipped from one place, in one shopping cart, made my life so much easier. Plus, Ferguson offers professionals exclusive pricing on the best selection of products with stock you can depend on.

For the kitchen cabinetry, I went with two different finishes from Top Knobs. For the latches, I chose the two inch cabinet latch in German Bronze. I chose this finish because I loved this latch, and it did not come in unfinished brass. Typically, when I install new hardware in the house, I go with unfinished brass because it is historically appropriate and it patinas over time. This is how the product would have aged in the house a hundred years ago, so why not do it again today. In this case however, I just didn’t see a shiny brass latch that I thought looked high quality. This, and the fact that my other latches have long lost their brass plating, meant that the German Bronze latch would match perfectly with the other latches in the space.

Similarly, when it came to finding cup pulls for the new cabinets, I focused first on form, and then on finish. I only have three extant cup pulls in the kitchen, and so finding something that closely matched the shape was important to me. These 2 9/16th pulls from Top Knobs were the closest shape I saw anywhere, and I think they’re just perfect. Once again though, when it came to finish, they didn’t come in unfinished brass, so I went with something they call Honey Bronze. This was a little bit of risk for me, but what put me over the edge was how closely they matched my appliance hardware. Once they were installed, I fell instantly in love. They are gold enough to look like brass, but soft enough to have that slightly bronzey look that my appliances also have. They also feel really good in the hand. 10/10.

You can check out the Dakota cup pull here

Ultimately, I still have a couple of other metal tones that will pop up in the kitchen through other materials, but more on that in the future.

October 31, 2022

A Ghost at the Mclain House?

“Is your house haunted?” This is probably the most common question that I get asked. And up until recently, I’ve always said no.

I’ve been in hundreds of old buildings, so I’m no stranger to creaky stairs or creepy attics. I’m also a pretty woo woo person. I teach yoga, do reiki, and meditate religiously. I’ve seen mediums, I believe in energy, and I’ve been known to buy a crystal or two…Basically, I am the kind of person you would expect to have a house ghost.

So when people are surprised that the house isn’t “haunted” I always explain that there’s a good reason why. When I bought the house, and again before we moved in, I had a conversation with it.

The premise is pretty simple. I basically just said out loud, “Hey, I recognize I’m a small part of this home’s history, I fully acknowledge there might be some others attached to this space as well, that’s fine. I’m doing my best to honor all of that, and quite frankly this house was damn near falling down so let’s be cool with each other. Here are my ground rules: Don’t scare me, I don’t want to see you, respect that at night or when I’m home alone I REALLY don’t want to know you’re here, and I tend to lose things a lot so if you can give me a hand with that, awesome. Please and thank you.”

I recommend everyone do this with their old house or building if they feel something that’s making them uncomfortable. Like I said, I work in a LOT of old buildings, and I’m quick to have a brief conversation with no one in particular when I’m on the job and get a weird feeling. It almost always works, until recently…

The Piano

A few months into living at the house, I brought a piano into the hall room. Generally, it collects mail and not much else. This past summer, I had a contractor in the house and we were chatting in the kitchen. Almost without noticing, I heard one of the piano keys. Just one note, and I thought maybe I imagined it. A day or so later we’re talking in the kitchen once again, and two notes play. Again, not wanting to seem like the crazy lady in the crazy old house, I don’t mention it, but there is a noticeable feeling when this person is working in my house.

I don’t know if it’s the piano, the contractor, or something else, but I tell the full story in the Wheeling Haunts podcast linked below.

Listen to my episode here

Since this podcast has come out, I’ve had a couple of other spiritually open friends fess up to noticing a little something something around the piano. Additionally, the contractor in question has confirmed he heard it too.

So Maybe the Mclain House is a Little Haunted

I’ve had another conversation with my house, and new ground rules have been laid. The aforementioned rules still stand. Absolutely no scaring me, and I most certainly don’t want to see anything. But… if this spirit wants to perhaps play a little party trick when I have people over, I might not be so mad about it 😉

October 3, 2022

Lighting the Mclain House

For those of you that know my work and have followed along for some time, you know my design philosophy is pretty resolute, for anyone new, allow me to explain.

I love old buildings, I love antiques. I also love modern furniture, folk items, and the occasional target find. When it comes to designing a historic space, I believe it is imperative and frankly, morally requisite, to honor the historic details of your space. That means the character defining features of your building, of the era in which it was built, should stay. Things like floorplan, windows, doors, stairways, fireplaces, tile… basically anything that if you picked the house up and shook it, the things that wouldn’t fall out, should stay. But when it comes to the things that would fall out, like furniture, and the superficial elements meant to be ephemeral, like paint color, go wild. I believe that if you take the time to curate items you love, and appreciate the features of a building that make it what it is, you can create a wholly unique and beloved space.

At the McLain House, this was the approach I took to lighting. I only had one original light fixture in place when I bought the house (it’s in the full bath). That meant I had over a dozen places where I needed to pick a new light fixture.

I partnered with Lamps Plus to furnish the main spaces on my first floor, and I am so glad that I did! Lamps Plus has a huge selection of lighting in all different styles and price points.

For the living and dining room, I knew I needed fairly large, dramatic fixtures. I personally love modern lighting that feels sculptural, and so that’s what I found! Playing off the black in both fireplace mantels and the brass of my hardware, I went with two extremely modern fixtures. Pretty much anytime I have the choice, when in doubt, I go for brass or black. You really can’t go wrong.

In the stair hall, I knew I needed a bright fixture for the first floor that complimented what I already had going on, and didn’t compete with the second floor. On the second floor, I realized I had a huge cavity to fill, and needed something that was both dramatic, and had the ability to throw some light into the second floor hallway. I chose a play on the classic sputnik design for the first floor, and then a showstopper for the stair cavity. Hanging that massive chandelier was no easy feat (just ask my electrician) but in the end I think it turned out beautifully.

Some of my other favorites throughout the space include the sweet circle sconces I put in the half bath, and the bubbly, soft semi flushmount I put in the bed nook space.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with the products from Lamps Plus, and how well they’ve all been able to fit into my space.

Product Links:

Hall Light

https://www.lampsplus.com/products/possini-euro-design-15-light-glass-and-brass-sputnik-modern-ceiling-light__64v58.html

Living Room Lights

https://www.lampsplus.com/products/possini-euro-planet-31-and-one-half-inch-wide-black-finish-modern-chandelier__k6114.html

Bedroom

https://www.lampsplus.com/products/possini-euro-lilypad-30-inch-wide-etched-glass-ceiling-light__20756.html

Sconces

https://www.lampsplus.com/products/possini-euro-bryony-11-and-one-quarter-inchh-brass-globe-wall-sconce__70t63.html

Dining Room

https://www.lampsplus.com/products/willow-48-and-three-quarter-inch-wide-aged-brass-kitchen-island-light-pendant__76m11.html

Hall Chandelier

https://www.lampsplus.com/products/jonathan-adler-rio-27-inch-wide-antique-brass-chandelier__6p082.html

February 6, 2022

January Recap

I can’t believe the first month of 2022 has come and gone, and we’re already in February.

It probably seems like not much has been happening around the house lately, which is kind of true and kind of not. Not a lot of physical changes have been happening, but a ton of planning has been going on.

The two big projects I want to begin this quarter are the kitchen, and the laundry room/dressing room. My goal for the kitchen is to have a design finalized and product ordered for a late spring installation, and my goal for the laundry room dressing room is total completion. Both of these things require a lot of planning.

First up, The Kitchen

Many of you have seen in my stories a lot of thought going into the kitchen space. My whole M.O. for this space is to showcase the original features- the woodwork, ceiling, and butler’s pantry, and accommodate a huge, badass oven and work table because I believe in a past life I was a french bread baker.

Of course I also want to maintain the floorplan, leave the curved wall undisturbed, open the butler’s pantry back up into the dining room, leave all windows unobstructed and stay within budget. No big deal, right?

The kitchen certainly isn’t easy, but I’m up for the challenge. I was very inspired by European kitchens and how the storage in them looks like furniture, and not walls of cabinets. Taking all of these must-haves into consideration, I developed a mood board that looks something like this:

And a cabinetry concept that generally follows this idea:

In the coming weeks we’ll continue to modify and tweak things until they’re just right, and I can afford them!

Next, The Laundry Room Dressing Room

I never quite know what to call this room. It’s the primary closet, it’s also the laundry room, and it also has great light and will be where all the dressing and undressing happens.

Either way, it is arguably the most needed room in the house. Yes, even more so than the kitchen.

I have a lot of clothes, and currently, they’re all still in bags on the floor of this space. Dan has fewer clothes, but a much lower tolerance for disarray, and cannot fathom how I can live like this. Cut to… us both living out of bags and hampers like college kids. Only one of us finds it charming.

Initially, I was ready to go all in on a custom cabinet solution, with built in everything, but after having several closet companies come and measure, most ended up modeling something that looked like this….

Complete with a 10k price tag. At this point, I think to myself, well I can do that. So I’ve shifted gears and am planning out my space on Ikea with the Pax system. For those that are unfamiliar, the pax wardrobe system is just about every blogger’s favorite, DIY-able closet solution, and so far I can see why. I need to take a day and just sit on the floor with my laptop for a while, but from what I’ve seen thus far, I think this will be an inexpensive solution that ends up looking just as good, if not better, than the expensive closet companies. To jog your memory, this is the space we’re working with now, in all its disorganized glory

And that’s it. Honestly, that feels like enough. February will bring more planning, pricing, and hopefully some buying and installing. Wish me luck!

December 31, 2021

2021 in Review

Wow. What a year. I think like everyone, I went into 2021 feeling perhaps overly optimistic. Despite the continued pandemic, and a whole bunch of other craziness in this world, I still feel we have a lot to be thankful for.

From a renovation standpoint, there are some things I didn’t get done that I’d hoped to have, and other things that I never anticipated being part of the plan.

From filming a TV show, to relaunching the website and everything in between, here are some of the highlights from the past year.

Perhaps most exciting of all, was moving in to the house. Over Thanksgiving weekend 2021, exactly three years after I initially moved to Wheeling and into my apartment, I packed up that same apartment, and moved in to my house.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was finally at a point where it felt more like a home than a construction project, and that was how I knew I was ready to move in.

I hosted my first Friendsgiving, and later Christmas, surrounded by loved ones. It really was a great end to an incredibly difficult year.

What’s Next

If working on this house has taught me anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. With all this love and support from around the world, opportunities I never could have accounted for have popped up. Who knows what new projects may surface in 2022.

There are a few things, however, that will be completed come hell or high water.

The Kitchen

The appraisal is in, the numbers are good, and I’ll be closing on my new mortage in the first few days of the new year. That means full steam ahead on the kitchen. I have a custom cabinet maker coming to take measurements on Monday, and as soon as we can get things confirmed and ordered, I’ll be ready and waiting for my installation date. This might sound soon, but with the delays and typical scheduling constraints, this likely means a finished kitchen sometime in the late Spring.

The Laundry Room Closet

Oh, the laundry room. We were so close to finishing this room before moving in, but with the move, this space has become a dumping ground, full of bags and bins of clothes with nowhere to call home.

Finishing this space is urgently needed, so as soon as I can get cabinets and shelving in, it will go up. I’m still shopping around to figure out if built in or prefab units will work, and it will really come down to what can be quickly insalled. I’m hoping to finish this space by February.

Wiring the Third Floor

This is another non-negotiable. The third floor really isn’t in too bad of shape, with almost all the plaster in tact and salvageable. The hard thing about that is, there’s no work happening up there without power and light. This isn’t the sexiest project, but it will increase my usable space in the hosue by nearly 30%!

Fun Stuff

Finally, by the end of the year, I hope to start doing the little fun projects that just haven’t been a priority yet. I’d like to organize my beautiful built ins, and start stripping painted on hardware. My hope is that by next year, I have all projects completed by Thanksgiving, so that I can take that time to really enjoy preparing the for holidays, and know where everything is!

This all seems far off, but like every year, it will pass faster than seems possible. I am so grateful to have you all following along on this journey with me. Thank you for being here. Cheers to 2022!

November 23, 2021

The Backyard Mini Makeover Reveal

Let’s Talk Yards

This summer I set out to do one thing: create a retreat amidst the chaos that is the current state of the Mclain house. Why waste time on something so unessential you may ask… because mental health, that’s why.

As many of you know, the house isn’t quite livable yet. My very beautiful and livable apartment does not have any outdoor space. This drives me insane, because I love being outside, and particularly entertaining outside. That, and the fact that after a long day of working on the house, I wanted to sit outside and have a drink without being reminded of everything I needed to do not just inside, but also outside.

So this summer I worked to get one tiny section of my yard under control. This is the space immediately behind the house that would have been the extent of the yard for the Mclain House historically. Today, because the house beside me was demolished and that lot is part of my property, I actually have an enormous yard for an urban neighborhood. Someday I will make this entire area the dreamiest courtyard imaginable. But until that day, I need a small yard that makes me happy.

The Before

The back yard is a little awkward, with a knee-height concrete retaining wall running the full width of the space, and only set about four feet back from the house itself, The result is a kind of sunken seating area feeling that is just strange. Beyond that, there is a small grassy area, with a brick walkway leading to the mini house. And that’s really about it.

When I bought the house, the whole yard was covered in leaves. I actually didn’t know I had a brick path or a drain until Dan uncovered them. The cement area is particularly difficult, as everything runs down into this area, and leaves and sticks seem to be perpetually stuck there.

The mini house was in pretty good shape, it mostly just needed a fresh coat of paint. More than anything, I needed a fence for Marshall.

**The Fence**
This project started practically. My first priority was to get a privacy fence up so that Marshall could have somewhere to hang out while I work, and so that I wouldn’t feel so on display in my backyard.

Lucky for me, Dan has some property across the river that he was working on, and tore down the old privacy fence that surrounded it. He also had two teenage football players working for him this summer, so they loaded up the salvaged fence, trucked it over to my place, and started putting it up. Because this is a temporary, aesthetic solution for the backyard, I had them face the fence in, so I would have a prettier surface to look at while enjoying the yard. When I fence in the whole area, I will install the panels the correct way, with the smooth side facing out.

Once the fence was up, we gave it a coat of paint to cover up its age. I chipped off a piece of the trim on the mini house, and had it color matched to paint the fence. People always ask me about paint colors, and unfortunately, nine times out of ten, I’ve either mixed my own, or color matched something in my decor. Such was the case with the fence.

The Border

Once the fence was up, we decided to continue the brick aesthetic around the inside perimeter by creating a brick border and mulching the area between it and the fence.

Because I am a hoarder, I happened to have a pile of old bricks behind the mini house, which provided more than enough material for this project. I love old bricks because they’re so not… red. These ones look like they came from a chimney or somewhere that exposed them to smoke. Many of the bricks have this wonderful blackish greyish purpley color that is beautiful and interesting and plays well with the color of the fence.

The process was pretty simple. De-sod the area, lay some landscaping fabric down, trench the border for the bricks, stick’em in, and then mulch. I don’t know if I would go the landscaping route again, because it makes planting after the fact such a pain, but it does keep the weeds down and I’m certainly not looking for more things to maintain right now. I popped some plants in and voila, the landscaping was finished! Since we were at the end of the season, I mostly planted gifted shade friendly plants that will really reach their prime next season.

The Mini House

The next stop was the mini house. Thankfully this space required very little beyond a fresh coat of paint. Once again, I chunked a piece of the peeling paint off, took it to Lowe’s to get color matched, and off we went.

Once it was painted, I picked up some lattice and painted it the same color, and nailed it onto the bottom of the house to close the gap between the building and the ground. While that space looks much smaller than Marshall, a groundhog lives under there, and if given the opportunity, Marshall would absolutely get himself stuck under the building in hot pursuit.

Finally, I added a window box to really emphasize the cute factor of the building. I grabbed two decorative shelf brackets from Lowe’s, sprayed them white, and stuck this window box on top. Then, because it was the end of the season, I stuffed said box full of FIFTY CENT petunias and called it finished. Storybook charm- check.

The Design

Once I had the big stuff taken care of, I found myself at a loss for how to actually design my space. For some reason, even though I’m totally comfortable designing inside, outdoor design often evades me.

Luckily, I was able to partner with this really cool online design service called Havenly to design the perfect backyard.

The way it works couldn’t be simpler. You just snap a few photos of your backyard, fill out a design survey that talks about things like how you use the space and what your aesthetic is, and then in a few days your designer sends you a personalized design concept!

This was so cool. We went through just a few revisions, and then once the design was finalized, I got my own curated page of products to shop from. It was like a design rendering meets pinterest. My designer, McKenzi, prioritized seating and lounging spaces, and my love of bistro lights. She helped me identify “spaces” within the yard, and it improved the flow SO much. The best part was every product also had alternates so if I liked the feel of something but maybe not the specific chair shown, it was so easy to find one that fit the design and my taste. After chatting back and forth a bit, this is the concept she came up with.

I absolutely loved it. Once we had an idea in place, I got to do the very fun part of shopping for the furniture. Havenly is cool because after we finalized the design, I got a curated shopping list that allowed me to purchase the pieces shown in the renderings, or pick similar items. The conversation set and bistro lights were really the centerpieces of the yard space, so once I had those picked out, everything else just fell into place. I loved the all white look shown in the rendering, but ultimately picked a wood set that would be easier to maintain. This was no problem at all with the different product options provided by Havenly.

The super easy to use shopping interface

If only my hourse really looked as clean as it does in these renderings

All of this was so helpful, especially since I had a big Labor Day picnic planned. So without further adieu… Here’s the finished space!

This project could not have happened without the fine folks at Havenly, and I highly recommend checking them out if you need that little extra bit of design assistance!

November 3, 2021

The Bed Nook Reveal

This is a very exciting post for me to write, because I finally have a BED at the Mclain House. This was supposed to happen some time ago (ahem, One Room Challenge), but as you all know now, life got crazy, we filmed a tv show, and my bedroom was swiftly forgotten.

Except not really, because I have been dying to get into this space. From the very beginning I’ve had a clear vision of what I wanted the main bedroom to look like, and what I wanted in it. The main gist was this – I wanted a giant bed for my giant dog, and an informal sitting area where I wouldn’t have to worry about hiding my tv, laptop charger, phone charger, dog toys, etc.

That main space is super close to being finished, but really won’t look done until I move in. The bed nook however, well let me just show you.

The Bed Nook

So, historically speaking, the main bedroom of the Mclain House was actually the back bedroom, and this front room was the sitting room for that space. The little side nook either would have been incorporated as a sewing room, nursery, or possibly totally closed off from the other spaces. As much as I wanted a baller bedroom, I didn’t need that much space, and so we closed the doorway between front and back rooms, leaving us with what we have today.

A Terrifying Beginning

It’s worth pointing out that before I could even consider putting a bed in here, we had a lot of work to do. When I bought the house, this room was arguably the most terrible and terrifying. All of the windows were gone, and the ceiling was falling in. Most of this damage was directly related to the lack of gutters and water infiltration issues that caused everything to kind of disintegrate. All that’s a story for a different day, but let’s take a look at where we started. Gross.

The bedroom and bed nook when I bought the Mclain House

Alcove Beds

Despite the horror film appearance, looking at the space, all I could think was “Alcove bed”. For those of you that don’t know, I got my start in architectural history at James Madison’s Montpelier. Now, Jimmy didn’t have an alcove bed, but he spent a lot of time in them, because his best friend Thomas Jefferson put them everywhere. TJ liked to take credit for a lot, but he actually saw this concept during his time travelling in France, where alcove beds were extremely popular in the late 18th century and beyond. (Now technically, the French got the idea from medieval times, but those beds were pretty rough, generally infested with one thing or another, and not at all aesthetically pleasing).

The Octogon Room at Monticello, Supposedly where the Madisons stayed

The French alcove beds really range from cute, frilly beds nestled into walls for spatial and thermal efficiency, all the way up to fancy, stage-like setups that allowed the French court to essentially stand at the foot of a royal bed and watch the king go to bed and wake up. These were called coucher and lever ceremonies, and so those alcove beds were literally built to facilitate this strange ritual. Remember in Marie Antoinette when she wakes up and people are all standing around staring at her? That was a pretty accurate depiction of a lever ceremony, except her curtains would have been drawn. The curtains were a particularly important part of the alcove bed, because they shielded the private activity from the public part of the room.

Lever Ceremony Scene in Marie Antoinette

So there you have it, the design inspiration of an architectural historian. Now, I did not want any lever or coucher ceremonies happening in my bedroom, nor was I interested in such a fancy, frilly set up, but rather I wanted my bed nook to evoke the general feeling of 18th century French royalty.

My Alcove Bed

This meant implementing a few things. First, I knew I wanted to put the bed in the small area off of the main bedroom, and make that the sole focus of the space.

Next, I wanted heavy, rich feeling curtains that could separate the sleeping space from the living space. Whether I want to go to bed early while my boyfriend watches tv, or just simply draw the curtains during the day so I don’t have to look at an unmade bed, separating the spaces felt as important to me as it did to Marie.

Finally, I wanted a bed made of the same, natural materials that have been used in beds for hundreds of years. As a preservationist, most of the activity in my house is focused on restoring elements of the home, or bringing vintage pieces in to furnish it. Any time I make a new purchase, like a bed, I try to only bring in materials that I can identify. When I got around to shopping for mattresses, I was shocked by just how synthetic and unrecognizable many of them are.

Back when Marie Antoinette was sleeping in her alcove bed, she would have slept on a cotton or linen covered mattress, stuffed with natural materials like coconut fiber, wool, horsehair or down. The lower income masses were also sleeping on natural materials like grasses and hay. Not great for allergies, but also not doing any toxic off gassing.

Even a few decades ago, our grandparents were sleeping on mattresses supported by metal coils, and layered with wool, cotton, and other recognizable materials. Then right around the end of the second world war, technology exploded, and so did the number of chemicals and synthetic materials available. Like so many products, mattresses changed, and their makeup became more unrecognizable.

My Naturepedic Mattress

I don’t like unrecognizable materials that sound like a science experiment, and I especially don’t like to put my face on them for 6-9 hours a night while I sleep.

Enter, Naturepedic. Naturepedic makes beautiful, durable mattresses that do not poison you while you sleep, aren’t made of unrecognizable synthetic materials that decimate our environment, and are meant to last for years in your home instead of centuries in a landfill.

Working with them I learned so much, and as many of you might remember, even got to check out the factory and see how the mattresses are made!

I learned so much about the materials used, the craftspeople that assemble the mattresses, and how I could customize the layers to suit myself, my partner, and Marshall!

My mattress arrived in several, manageable sized boxes (super helpful when you have to carry them up two flights of stairs) and it was honestly fun to put each layer together, and zip everything up at the end. The process was not hard at all, and it was reassuring to see every component of my bed. The best part? It even smelled natural. You know how sometimes you get furniture with that new car smell that leaves you wondering what exactly that even is? This mattress does not smell like that. It smells like…fiber. Wool or linen or something recognizable and unalarming. It’s the little things.

The Final Touches

There really wasn’t a whole lot to this bedroom beyond a few key elements. The bed was lovingly created and gifted by Naturepedic, and stands as the focal point of the space.

Keeping with my initial inspiration, I decided to forego a headboard and instead do a full wall tapestry as a nod to the opulent textiles that accompanied the alcove beds of the 18th century. I love the natural motif of this one I discovered at the Anthropologie outlet. It’s colorful while still being soothing enough for a sleeping space.

And finally the curtains. The curtains were made by my loving mother who carefully considered height, weight, and the perfect pooling factor when she created them. We’re still debating what kind of fancy tie backs to install, but for now I think it looks just perfect. Marshall’s pretty happy with his new set up too.

October 18, 2021

The Main Bathroom Reveal!

Well now that everyone knows my secret- I’ve been hiding three finished rooms for you because I had to for the TV show they were going to be on, I can finally share the full room reveals!

Keeping with the bathroom excitement, today’s post is about another bathroom, the MAIN BATHROOM! This is one of those rooms that when it was finished, it gave me a sense of …ahh, this is going to be a livable structure one day. Marble tile has that effect on a person.

I’m in love with the room for many reasons, but one of the big ones being the perfect combination of new and old that exists there.

This room was the original bathroom for the house. It retained it’s historic wainscotting, and a big old cast iron pedestal bathtub. But it also was too small to accommodate a toilet and shower, and so the previous owners started the process of remodeling the space to accommodate modern necessities.

They achieved this by taking the back wall of the bathroom, and pushing it out about three and a half feet, essentially borrowing space from the back bedroom to accommodate the shower and the toilet. It was a great idea, and here’s a very technical rendering of that floorplan. The dotted line is where the wall used to be, the solid line shows the current floorplan that accommodates a toilet and shower.

The Before

So when I bought the house, the bathroom was not exactly usable, but serviceable. The toilet was hooked up. So that was something. The fittings were also all either wrong or loose, and so the early days of this project brought a lot of me flooding the bathroom and kitchen beneath. Eventually I just shut everything off. Here’s what we started with.

The Shower

So as you can see, when I bought the house, the general premise of a shower stall was there, but it needed reworking. When it comes to anything plumbing or water, I trust no one, so I ripped out the cement board and underlayment that was there, and had someone basically redo it. I wanted to be absolutely certain that the basin wouldn’t leak, and that the walls would be smooth and plumb enough to have a nice tile finish.

Selecting the tile was pretty simple- I wanted to choose materials that were appropriate for the age of the house, simple and clean, and timeless. I feel like bathrooms in particular can get really trendy, so my motto in selecting the tile and fixtures was to try and pick something that would make sense in the 1920s, 1950s, 1980s, and today. White subway tile and marble penny round never goes out of style.

I agonized over the grout for some time, going back and forth between white and gray. Gray would be more historically correct, as most people were just slapping tile up with portland cement back in the day, but they also laid the tile super tight, so grout lines were virtually invisible. This was the root of my conundrum, modern gray grout would look far more gray than historic tile laid with portland cement. Ultimately, despite everyone warning against it, I went with white grout to minimize the noticeability of grout lines. I don’t know if I will love this long term, but only time will tell. I know I’m okay with it having some discoloration over time because hello, it’s white grout and I’m not delusional.

I added a bench, for no reason other than I think niches are ugly (same with accent stripes of tile, no thank you) and selected this shower hardware from Vintage Tub and Bath. I really wanted the effect of a rain shower, with the look of vintage hardware, so I was so pleased with this set. It is surprisingly sturdy and feels expensive. It also has a handheld showerhead which makes dog washing and no hair wash days much easier. All around 10/10.

It’s also worth mentioning that Vintage Tub and Bath also sent me the most beautiful, classic toilet as well. A toilet with a smooth pedestal makes cleaning infinitely easier, but often those toilets end up looking so modern. This one is the perfect combination of classic lines, and an easy to clean base. Once again, it’s high quality, feels expensive, and a 10/10.

The Wainscoting
The most charming feature of this whole room, in my humble opinion, is the wainscoting. It is original to the space, and had about three hundred layers of paint peeling away. I admit, I kind of loved the way it looked unfinished. I loved seeing the ghost marks of hardware past, and all the texture from years of neglect.

Lead paint aside, I did decide to give all the paneling a light scrape and sand to get the heavy stuff up, and then a hearty dose of primer and two coats of paint. The only problem? There wasn’t enough panelling to wrap the new toilet nook.

I debated custom milling this, leaving it blank, and every other option under the sun. Eventually, I decided to incorporate a complimentary tongue and groove panelling with a decorative bevel, rather than a bead. From a distance, this subtle difference is indistinguishable, but up close, you can clearly tell it was added. This is exactly how I like my preservation design decisions to go: complimentary but still visible to the trained eye. I don’t want to trick anyone into thinking that area was always part of the bathroom, but I also don’t want to make it obvious that it wasn’t.

The only challenge in all this was the moulding capping the wainscot. This was not easy to replicate. The original crown is two pieces of trim, layered one on top of each other. The bottom piece is a pretty standard cove moulding, but the top is not something you can grab off the shelf at your big box store. I did not take this into consideration, because as we all know I am not a finish carpenter, so with all of two days’ notice, I sent a panicked call out to my favorite carpenter Kent, and he milled me the perfect replica. He basically took regular dimensional lumber, rounded off the outer edge a bit, and cut in two channels. Nail some store bought cove moulding under that and you have a damn convincing replica. I was, and continue to be, astonished by Kent and wish he could live in my backyard and fix all the things for me all the time.

The Wallpaper
Oh, you didn’t notice the wallpaper? Understandable, it’s pretty understated.

It’s no secret I love wallpaper. I knew I was keeping the wainscoting, was set on a white shower, and wanted to keep the room bright. I ordered about one million samples of wallpaper, and really went all out sampling every pattern, color, and style that’s ever caught my eye. I polled the office and you all, and the winner was clearly a warm toned bold floral. It would have been lovely.

But I was in love with two others. Option A was soft subtle geese, and Option B was the one I ultimately selected. I absolutely love it for several reasons.

First, upon first look, it looks pretty old house traditional, maybe a little wacky in the colors but not crazy. Upon further inspection, you start to notice little flower people playing instruments and sitting on petals and I just love it. It’s mildly asiatic in influence, without being problematic.

It also has a bright white background. This worked for my tile, and for my installation skill. It is SO MUCH EASIER to install wallpaper with a white background. If you have any gaps or issues it’s much less noticeable and forgiving. Given I had to install this paper around a tub and toilet and sink, that forgiveness was necessary. I’d also be remiss not to mention that this was the first wallpaper project my mom and I tackled, and it went incredibly well save for the fact that it took much longer than expected and we ended up wallpapering until 3:00AM. It’s a good thing I’m an only child.

I love it more and more everytime I see it, and look forward to the day I’ll be able to soak in a hot bath and stare at my wallpaper for an hour.

The Other Stuff

The sink and the mirror came with the house. The sink is not original but vintage, and appropriate for the age of the house. The Mirror is an old dresser mirror, and the wood works with the little branches so I kept it. Kent also framed around it, immortalizing it in place forever.

The overhead light was also in the house when I bought it. Probably from the 1930s or 40s. I got two new sconces that are complementary to the light, and flipped them upside down to mimic the hanging fixture. The tub I did absolutely nothing to except clean it, and the same goes for the floors- they were already there. At some point they could use a refinishing, but for now, a good scrub looks good to me.

So that’s that.

In the name of transparency, I had several big ticket items sponsored for this room. Roca Tile provided the subway tile and penny round. Vintage Tub and Bath provided the toilet and shower hardware. Wallpaper Direct provided the Coordonne wallpaper. Whenever I work with brands, I always lead with my design first. That is to say, I would never put something in my house because it was free. 9/10 I approach companies with the product I have designed for the space, and ask them if they’d like to work with me, so rest assured that any product I plug, I truly love and see the value in.

That being said, here’s the realistic budget breakdown

Labor $4,050.00

This was a project I did not want to screw up, so I hired it out. I was also doing it for a TV show, meaning my fast and loose approach to deadlines was not going to cut it. Hiring it out meant I was sure it would be done in time. The scope included redoing the shower, tiling it, installing all the hardware and toilet, repairing some plaster, patching in the paneling and miscellaneous plumbing.

Wallpaper $1,113

I got seven boxes of double rolls with plenty left over

Toilet $395.00

Shower Hardware $670.00

Sconces $112.00 for Two

Misc Wood Panelling $150

Finish Carpentry Labor $500

Grand Total: $5,925.00

You’ll see that even if I hadn’t had some of these products sponsored, the total cost for my bathroom remodel really isn’t all that bad. That is because when possible, I try to use what I have and splurge on what I love. By doing things like keeping the bathtub, sink, mirror, panelling, and floors, I was able to spend on wallpaper and the shower. This is how I keep my budget in check, while still loving the final result. And I love the final result.

September 22, 2021

The Half Bath Under the Stairs- The Big Reveal!

This is a very exciting post. After all the water damage and rotten floors and racoons and dust… I finally have a FINISHED room to share.

The Mclain House half bath is one of those rooms I liked immediately the first time I saw it. It’s this funny little room with angular ceilings, and it had the most fabulous vanity in it when I bought the house.

The room itself is not actually original to the house, it’s situated where the original service stair would have terminated. Basically, in the 1950s, the family that owned my house decided to move to the first floor, and rent the upper floors. This meant they needed a bathroom, so they ripped out the bottom half of the staircase, and put one there.

Historically, there was a side door off of the alley that led to this part of the house, so servants and deliveries could come through the alley, enter the service door, and then go back to the kitchen or up the stairs to the upper levels. When the new bathroom went in, the stairs were removed, and the doorway was bricked in.

While I would love the functional uselessness of that feature, I am happy to have a bathroom on the first floor for guests, and I like that it feels like a funny little jewel box of a space.

If you don’t remember, this is what the space looked like the day I bought it

And so, with the threat of entertaining on Labor Day without a bathroom for guests to use looming… I set to work on the half bath this summer.

The Wallpaper

Actually, I started thinking about this room last summer, right after I bought the house. The room had good bones to start with, namely in its excellent marble floor tiles, and cute sink and vanity. I knew I wanted to keep these elements, and I knew I wanted some funky wallpaper that would feel like an unexpected surprise when someone walked in.

I ordered about six samples from Burke Decor, and went through the very scientific process of my boyfriend and I assigning them a value from 1-10. Shocker, we didn’t really agree.

Then I put the options on Instagram for everyone to weigh in. Once again, my first choice came in dead last. You all (and Dan) overwhelmingly favored the green ferns on the blue background.

So why did I end up with the green and purple crazy trees? Because I realized that I liked that wallpaper not only because of the way it looked, but the way it made me feel. I absolutely fell in love with this wallpaper from Burke Decor

One of the prettiest and most underrated scenes in my memory is the way certain landscapes look in early spring, when some trees don’t have leaves, some are brand new and bright green, and when the redbud trees (which are usually actually purple) bloom ahead of everyone else. Where I am, in Wheeling, this landscape is most often seen driving through rural eastern Ohio, where reclaimed mine land has been turned into public land, and planted with a variety of species. This wallpaper reminded me of taking those Sunday drives, when spring is just beginning and the sun comes out for what feels like the first time in an eternity. For that reason, I knew I liked that wallpaper not because it was trendy or striking, but because it would always elicit those feelings in me, and really, isn’t that what we’re all looking for in a powder room?

One of the major issues in the half bath was the rising damp and mold on the exterior wall. This was addressed largely last summer, when we repointed the exterior brick that was allowing moisture to creep in. After some experimental treatments, I determined that the mold was actually not as bad as it looked, and pretty surface level. I gave the plaster a light sanding which removed most of it, treated the walls with a bleach mixture, and then applied a skim coat in the areas that needed it. After that, everything got several heavy coats of Kilz mold killing primer, the ceiling was painted, and we were ready for wallpaper.

I could talk about wallpaper for days, but if I have anything to say, it’s this: It is not that hard to hang wallpaper, and if you like it, do it! Seriously. The first attempt is intimidating, but once you start, you realize it really is as simple as matching the pattern, smearing some glue on the wall, and doing it. I think in the world of youtube tutorials and manufacturers’ ten page instructions things can get a little overwhelming, but try to remember, this is something our grandmothers did with five kids running around and no internet. You are a highly educated individual. You can hang wallpaper.

So one weekend my mom and I set out to hang this wallpaper. It has a three part repeat, which means you get three different rolls to work from simultaneously, and you hang them up in A, B, C order before repeating. This really doesn’t make things harder, but it is slightly more wasteful, so order extra. You always want to have plenty of extra wallpaper on hand in case you have wall damage or something like that. Plus the scraps make fun wrapping paper.

Sweaty and tired after a long day of hanging wallpaper

All in all it took us about ten hours to paper the whole room. We removed the toilet and vanity to make the cleaning, painting, trim, and papering much easier. Highly recommend the hour of grumbling it takes to move a toilet to prevent the days of torture that working aorund a toilet guarentees.

When it comes to wallpaper, here are my insider tips:

Pick and organic pattern. Curvy shapes are way more forgiving than a tiny geometric pattern
A white background is also helpful. You will not notice a teeny tiny gap on a white paper. It will stand out like a sore thumb on a black paper
If you cannot enjoy the process and accept that your wallpaper will have a flaw here and there, hire someone. Home decor should be fun, not send you into fits everytime you look at it.

The Vanity

The other major part of this project was the vanity. As I’ve said, the vanity and the floors were in the house when I bought it. I loved the vanity instantly. I did not love the color, or the dingy appearance of what I knew was a beautiful sink.

Admittedly, I can’t take much credit for the vanity. My mom actually refinished it. She’s newly retired, and very crafty, so all I really had to do was shove the thing in my car and drive it to Pittsburgh. A week later, it miraculously appeared at my door looking brand new.

The process was pretty simple, mom prepped the body of the vanity and painted it a nice green that matched the wallpaper. The vanity top had an old, cracked and lifting wood veneer, so she removed that, sanded the wood beneath, and applied four coats of a poly stain combo that gave a nice sturdy, shiny finish that so far, is repelling water like a dream. Finally, she spent “a million hours” scrubbing the sink with brasso to give it that shiny new look. We lined the drawers with wallpaper and voila, a beautiful vanity that cost nothing more than paint, stain, and my mother’s time. Thanks mom.

The Accessories

Once the heavy lifting was finished, there were really only a few little things left to do. This space was added, so no original trim, so in the interest of expediency, and the ability for someone to recognize this was not an original room, I added some big box trim, with my signature corner moulding.

I love corner moulding because 1. It’s decorative and fancy, and 2. It means you can make a regular cut on the end of your baseboard rather than messing with the perfect angles meeting in the corner. This is something I hate to do, and I have a fancy house anyway so every single baseboard I install has this corner moulding. When you buy it, you either buy inside corner moulding (for inside corners, think concave) or outside corner moulding ( for outside corners, thin convex). You’ll use inside moulding more often than outside, and a lot of times your bigger box stores will only have inside corner moulding. These are the ones I bought for my non-historic half bath. You can also get reproduction ones like this (which is actually a perfect match for my house) that I’ll buy for rooms I’m restoring.

I also added two wall sconces that I partnered with Lamps Plus on. I love that they’re modern and brassy and throw a lot of light into my dark little room.

Finally, I had to address the toilet situation. The toilet that was in this space was perfectly fine, so after a heavy duty scrubbing, I decided to just keep it. The only problem was it was so WHITE. And the whitest thing about it was the cheap plastic seat. So in an effort to tone things down, and bring more quality materials into the home, I decided to swap it out for a traditional wood toilet seat and brass hardware to match the rest of the room. I really like the seat and hardware I found on amazon. They’re substantial, and feel like they’ve been there for a hundred years and will last a hundred more.

I also picked up this vintage inspired toilet paper holder because it matched, was cute, and felt appropriate in the room. It’s not the most substantial piece of hardware, but it scores high for affordability and style.

And that’s it! I still have a few random things I’d like to address, like replacing the old 1950s casement window, getting a pretty brass flush handle, and flipping the door around so the stained side faces in, and the painted side faces out. But for sanity’s sake, I’m calling this room finished… for now.

So how did it come out in terms of budget? Let’s find out together. I’m more of an “ish” person when it comes to budgeting, so this is the first time I’ve put pen to paper on this one.

Walls

Kilz Mold Killing Primer $20.00

Pint of pink ceiling Paint $12.00

Bottle of bleach $2.00

Burke Decor wallpaper $220.00 per box x 3 boxes $660.00. Burke Decor was kind enough to partner with me on this project, but I feel it’s important for people to know what the real cost looks like.

Wallpaper glue $20.00

Sconces $129.00×2= $258.00 Lamps plus was kind enough to partner with me on this project, but this is the real cost for the product.

Floors

Marble tile I kept $0

Millwork

5” baseboard from Lowes (2 12’ lengths) $50

Corner Moulding $1.28 x 4= $5.12

Vanity

Minwax Polyshades Stain and Primer Combo $10.00

Pint of green paint $12.00

Sink- $0.00 but $5.00 for a container of brasso

Plumbing $15.00 miscellaneous fittings

Toilet

Toilet paper holder $20.00

Toilet Seat $45.00

Toilet Hardware $18.33

Lights

Grand Total

$1,152.45

So for about $1,000.00 I was able to finish my half bath. Using the existing tile and salvaging the vanity were huge money savers, and it just goes to show how an object can be styled differently to create a totally new space. If you didn’t have these things already, facebook marketplace, craigslist, or your local salvage shop would all be great places to look and generally have lots of options for these things. It’s way easier to salvage materials for a small room than a large one!

I love this room now, and I can’t thank Burke Decor and Lamps Plus enough for providing me with beautiful materials. Let me know what you think!

September 14, 2021

So, Where Have I Been?

One room challenge week… oh I don’t know, eleven?

I know, I know, it was supposed to be done in eight weeks with a big exciting reveal at the end. Trust me, that’s what I was hoping for too. But, alas, between the website and the secret project, I just couldn’t keep up.

So what exactly was keeping me from staying on track exactly? Well, I can’t tell you everything yet, but I can tell you this: My house project is going to be featured on TV.

This came totally out of the blue, and felt like a great opportunity to showcase not only my house, but Wheeling as a whole. And since showing what Wheeling has to offer and inspiring people to take on their own old home projects, I signed on.

And that meant throwing my construction schedule out the window, and committing to finishing three rooms. I chose the living room, the dining room, and the main bath. And let me tell you, it is KILLING me not to be able to show you those yet. But we are so close. Very soon, I’ll be able to post all the updates and behind the scenes content I created during the projects, and show you three truly stunning “afters”. After what has felt like a never ending project, I’m excited to share with everyone how close this house really is to being move-in ready.

So bear with me. The coming weeks are going to be seriously exciting, and the best is yet to come!

September 1, 2021

Welcome to my New Website

Well hello there! Welcome to my brand new, beautiful website. Notice I say website, and not blog.

That’s right, this whole thing just got a lot more professional.

It’s been a tad over a year since the whole house thing took off, and suddenly tons of people found out about what I’ve been doing, and shockingly, were pretty into it.

First, let me say thank you. None of this would be possible if not for interested people like you. It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly. I realized many months ago that if people were going to continue to care about what I do, and I wanted to continue to create quality content for them, I needed a much higher quality vehicle to do it. That choose your own adventure self made blog thing just wasn’t cutting it. And I get it, I don’t like to consume material that looks bad either.

And so we started the long, and tedious process of making this website. A lot of it is the same, and some things are different. The goal is to make me more efficient, so I can make better content for you, and thereby make this whole thing a lot more enjoyable for us all. Let me show you around.

First off, as I said, this is a website. This is the home for all the things I do, not just the blog. I’m so thankful that you all care about the Mclain house because obviously I do too, but I also needed a space for my professional services. I consult, work on other projects, and love connecting with all kinds of people and companies. So if you’re interested in working with me, check out services.

The other big thing you’ll notice is the addition of Patreon. I know. This is a biggie. One that I agonized over.

I heard you guys loud and clear when you asked for video. I considered youtube. I really considered youtube, because I know it’s free to you. But it’s also a gamble for me. I’m a professional, but not a professional videographer. I want to make things for my audience, not work endlessly to try and rank in youtube’s algorithm in the hopes of monetizing that content.

Patreon feels like a way more personal way for me to create specific video content for you all. And we’re keeping it simple. Five bucks a month, for access to more in depth tutorials, video tours, and what I’m most excited about, AFTER TOURS. Don’t worry, I’ll still post the full project recap on the blog, but the video tours are now going to live on Patreon.

I hope you’ll consider supporting me on this platform, because I can promise every dollar you contribute will go directly to the Mclain house, or other historic preservation project in the community.

The next thing you’ll notice: I have a shop! Kind of. This is where I’ll post links to all the beautiful things you guys ask me about. Many are affiliate links, meaning if you click from my site I make a small commission, but some are just items I genuinely love from small businesses, artists, etc. This will come in handy more as I continue to finish rooms.

Finally, the last big change is the addition of a newsletter! This is going to be a biweekly run down of what’s been happening on the blog, instagram, patreon, and any other community or preservation news I want to share with you all. If you’re already subscribed to the blog, you’ll continue to get updates when I post, but if you want the full monty, sign up!

So go ahead and look around. I’ll have a lot of great stuff coming out the coming weeks, including some finished spaces I have been DYING to share with you guys. Thanks so much for being here.

And on one final note, I want to give a big thank you to the people that made this far superior website possible.

Brandon Essington, of Essington Creative for creating this masterpiece and putting up with my endless edits, questions, and redesigns.

Kylie Ignace, with Authentically Creative for helping me through the branding process and pointing out oh so astutely that I did not need a blog, but rather, a website.

Riley Lynn Carpenter of Riley Lynn Photography for the beautiful photos you see on the website, and for being a constant promoter of small businesses, women, and Wheeling

The Wheeling Heritage staff and particularly Alex, Natalie, and Johnathon whose eyes for design, marketing, and all things digital helped me immensely throughout this process. And came up with my logo.

And finally Dan, who is my partner, and personal Kris Jenner. He cannot stand to see unrealized potential, or bad branding. Thank you for sharing Brandon, and everything else with me.

June 11, 2021

A Year of the McLain House

A year ago I bought my house for me. Today, I know I bought my house for everyone.

It’s been one year (and a couple of days) since I purchased the McLain House. This feels like an occasion worth celebrating, because although I haven’t moved in yet, a lot has changed.
I closed on the house on May 26th, 2020. Several months into a pandemic, working from home, and in a new relationship. I had about 600 instagram followers, no blog or website to speak of, and every intention of keeping a break neck construction schedule accountable to myself and myself only. I couldn’t have imagined how different things would look a year in, but here we are.
It feels appropriate to write this post today, when my friend Stephanie and her husband are coming to visit, because Steph was the first person to ever see the house. It was Labor day weekend 2019, and I was walking her around Wheeling’s historic neighborhoods when I stopped in front of the McLain House and looked up. I remember saying something to the effect of hey that one looks available, and what a great yard too. I wonder if it’s available?
My now neighbor, Donna, was sitting on her porch and overheard this conversation. She promptly informed me that she knew the owners, it probably was available, and I should call them. Steph giggled, and I, knowing of the couple that owned the house, quietly started plotting.
From September 2019 to May of 2020, I did months of due diligence, collected bids for rehabilitation, and even waited out a first offer’s contract before it was my turn to try and buy. Ultimately, I closed on a warm summer day, taking the extra time to walk from my downtown apartment to the lawyer’s office on 14th street where I would sign the paperwork. I made an effort to remember everything about that day from what I was wearing to the pens we had to sanitize between signatures. There was no picture with a sold sign, no fanfare, the whole thing took all of ten minutes. When I asked if I could walk up to the house (only a block away) and let myself in, my lawyer responded “Well yeah, you own it”.

When I walked through the back yard that day, the peony bush I didn’t even know was there was in full bloom. As I opened the back door and entered my house a vase of peonies and a letter from the sellers greeted me, and reminded me that none of us really own these old homes, we just care for them for a season of our lives, before the next person becomes part of their story.

Over the last year, I feel pretty good about the contributions I’ve made to the McLain House’s story. So far, in chronological order, we:

Cleaned up the yard including pruning trees, building a garden, and shoveling BUCKETS of disgusting leaves and debris out of the cellar entrance
Demoed the entire house. And I mean the ENTIRE house. I stopped keeping track of how many dumpster loads of fallen plaster and moldy wall board were removed, but it was a lot.

SO much demo. This is the back bedroom looking into the front bedroom

Repaired and repointed all of the critical areas of brick (about 60% of the house)
Repaired all structural wooden members
Reproduced the entire wooden box gutter system
Repainted the exterior gutters, windows and doors
Repaired the slate roof by replacing missing slates and redoing all of the lined peaks and valleys

Installed six completely reconstructed windows where the originals were too far gone. This includes bringing back the curved windows in the front bedroom.
Restored or reglazed oh I don’t know, fifteen additional windows
Ran electrical to the rooms on the second floor
Milled and installed hundreds of feet of trim matching the original profiles

Installed three new gas lines, and fireplaces in the living, dining, and entryway
Installed brand new HVAC and duct work for all three floors of the house
Refinished all of the floors on the first level
Hung new drywall in the living, dining, hall, laundry room, bathroom, and bedroom
Finished the Living, Dining, and Main Baths (more on that soon!)

One day, I hope to go back and do some more detailed blog posts about these projects. With an old house, some of this stuff has a learning curve, and I recognize there’s a lot of missing information for people looking to rehab realistically (or at all quite frankly!)
And then there’s the stuff I can’t show you yet! But I will be able to soon. When I started this project it was for me, and I was the only one that cared. I started documenting the process mostly for my mom to read from Pittsburgh, and also in the hopes that maybe I’d get some tile #sponsored here and there.
I never could have guessed how many people would respond to this house. The number of emails, DMs and blog comments I’ve received is astounding, and 99.99% are not just positive, but downright lovely, day-making, beautiful sentiments. This project has created a community that has quite frankly, changed my life.

I appreciate every single person that follows along with the #mclainhouse. Your buy-in is responsible for partnerships and opportunities that have changed the trajectory of this rehabilitation, and made it so much better.
And I also want you to know I hear you. I get dozens of questions about how people can do this themselves, in Wheeling, or another community. There isn’t enough good information about historic preservation for real people out there, and I will do my best to continue to support and assist real people trying to fix up their own dream building.
So in this next year, expect tons of new McLain House content, but also so much more. Soon, I’ll have a new website with services, tips, and tutorials. So many of you have asked for video, so I’m going to listen. Expect surprises, products, and PLENTY of Marshall content.
A year ago I bought my house for me. Today, I know I bought my house for everyone.

Sneak peak of some “After”s I can’t show you just yet

May 25, 2021

One Room Challenge Week 3

One Room Challenge Week 3 Windows and Walls!
For those of you that have been following me, you know how silly it is to do this right now. For those of you that are new, welcome! My name’s Betsy and I’m an architectural historian and community development professional by day, and a crazed woman by night, restoring my 1892 home in the historic East Wheeling neighborhood of Wheeling, West Virginia.
And for those of you new to the One Room Challenge, it’s a design challenge sponsored by Better Homes and Gardens. Twice a year 20 featured designers and hundreds of guest participants transform a space in six weeks. The progress can be tracked via blog posts as well as on Instagram.

For more information about The One Room Challenge you can visit the official website here.

To the Windows

Oh the windows. What a saga.

When I first bought the McLain house, the bedroom windows were by far in the worst shape. As in they pretty much didn’t exist. The two large windows and sashes were completely empty, and I think two pieces of plexi and a shower door were screwed into the walls to cover the opening. The two side lights actually had semi functional double hung windows in them, but they were clearly a later addition, as the original windows were curved, as evidenced by what remained of a scrap of casing.

I decided right away, (when my loan was largely unspent and my motivation was high) to put the curved glass back in its rightful place in those side lights.

Then, I had the two huge windows replicated based off of the one historic photo I had available to me.

The large, flat windows went in fairly quickly. They’re almost perfect reproductions, except instead of having one pane of wavy glass as there would have been historically, I opted for a fancy double pane, with an interior wavy glass and an exterior sheet glass. Because again, it was early on in the process and I was feeling freer with my money. But in all seriousness, this does help what essentially amounts to a wall of glass feel a little warmer in the winter.

But then we have the issue of the sidelights. The curved windows on either side took much longer to construct, mainly due to the incompetence of the carpenters hired to make them, but also in small part to the curvature of the frame. The glass has been equally challenging, because when you’re custom bending glass to fit two windows, you want to make absolutely certain that they fit.

The flat windows went in before Christmas, but these curved suckers have been a constant thorn in my side for the better part of the last year. When managing a construction project like this you learn there are certain battles you might pick up if you were living in a house that you ultimately can’t force yourself to fight when you’re not actually living there. And so in the case of these curved windows I’ve been uncharacteristically patient. Which has mostly been fine, except my otherwise really coming together exterior had two giant sheets of plywood bumming everyone out.

Last week, we finally got some light to shine in! Glass! But wait… not so fast. Actually just plexiglass. Because we had reached a point where I could no longer stand to have my house semi sealed from the elements, and because my contractor insisted that the sashes settle before installing the final curved glass. This last part is likely bullshit, but again, we pick our battles. And I got windows with something resembling glass, and a tight seal from the outside world.

I must admit, it’s been a game changer. My real glass is shipping from New York this week, but in the meantime, it has been a real pleasure to see what looks like a real window in this room. And the curve. Oh the curve. Seeing the way the glass bumps out has really reaffirmed the frivolous expense, and brought so much joy to me, and Marshall.

The curve bumps the window out just enough that I can see the whole way down the street, and look towards downtown. I’m actually glad I blew so much of my budget on this corner of the house, because in all reality, it’s where I’ll spend a lot of my time. Plus who doesn’t love to take a nap with the afternoon sun streaming in?

May 21, 2021

One Room Challenge Week 2

For those of you that have been following me, you know how silly it is to do this right now. For those of you that are new, welcome! My name’s Betsy and I’m an architectural historian and community development professional by day, and a crazed woman by night, restoring my 1892 home in the historic East Wheeling neighborhood of Wheeling, West Virginia.

And for those of you new to the One Room Challenge, it’s a design challenge sponsored by Better Homes and Gardens. Twice a year 20 featured designers and hundreds of guest participants transform a space in six weeks. The progress can be tracked via blog posts as well as on Instagram.

For more information about The One Room Challenge you can visit the official website here.

So What is this Room?
The bedroom spaces in the house have always been a little confusing, since the front bedroom has a tiny room off to the side, and also, a doorway into the back bedroom. Now, the small room off to the side isn’t that unique for the period, it was pretty common to have nurseries or sewing rooms attached to the primary bedroom. But the doorway into the back bedroom is pretty strange.

For those of you trying to keep track of this in your heads, here’s a very sophisticated floor plan I drew at my desk.

The Front room is what I will call the primary bedroom, which will encompass the side room as well. And that looks like this:

Should be a pretty sweet main bedroom right? That’s certainly how it was used historically you might think…

But wait! That still doesn’t add up. We still have an unexplained doorway into the back room, and, upon closer investigation, there’s even more evidence to suggest the original use was a little more complicated than what meets the eye.
The back bedroom has the finer woodwork and fireplace, and the doorway does appear to be of the same era as the rest of the woodwork. This leads me to believe that the back room was actually the primary bedroom, the front room was used as more of a sitting room for the couple/family, and the side room was likely used as a transitional space, be it for sewing nursery or some other purpose.

How I’m Going to Use It
Interesting as that may be, for now, I’m sticking to my original plan. Block off the doorway to create two separate bedrooms, case out the opening for the side room, and use the larger portion of that front room as a sitting area and the side area as a bed nook.
So that’s the use plan, and it comes just in time because drywall, windows, and plaster are all starting next week!
Check back for the week 3 update on walls and windows!

May 11, 2021

One Room Challenge- Week 1

If there’s one thing I love, it’s a poorly timed creative project. I don’t know why, but right when things are getting hectic is usually when I decide to oh, I don’t know… reupholster my furniture, Marie Kondo my entire apartment, or perfect the art of the homemade croissant.
Enter, The One Room Challenge. The One Room Challenge is an online event where designers, bloggers, and influencers join together to chronicle a room makeover over the course of eight weeks. In the midst of my total home rehab this feels like exactly the kind of rigid accountability I *need* (cue sarcasm).
So, I am happy to announce for my inaugural one room challenge, I will be tackling the main bedroom in the house!

Welcome to the One Room Challenge
For those of you that have been following me, you know how silly it is to do this right now. For those of you that are new, welcome! My name’s Betsy and I’m an architectural historian and community development professional by day, and a crazed woman by night, restoring my 1892 home in the historic East Wheeling neighborhood of Wheeling, West Virginia.
And for those of you new to the One Room Challenge, it’s a design challenge sponsored by Better Homes and Gardens. Twice a year 20 featured designers and hundreds of guest participants transform a space in six weeks. The progress can be tracked via blog posts as well as on Instagram.
For more information about The One Room Challenge you can visit the official website here.

The Before
For anyone following my journey up until now, you’ve likely seen pictures like this. That was the state of the front bedroom when I bought it last year on May 28th, 2020. It was arguably one of the worst rooms in the house thanks to years of water damage, missing windows, and generally acting as a catch all for many of the house’s odds and ends.

Working in order of urgency, I addressed the roof and gutters, ordered new restoration windows, and repaired the masonry. All that allowed me to finally start to think of this room in terms of actually putting it back together, so that now it looks something like this.

The Plan
Despite having a few hundred other pressing concerns (more on that secret project later) I’ve found myself thinking about the design of this room constantly. From the beginning I’ve had the clearest vision for this space, and have been most excited to start it.
The basic idea is this- I want to use the large space as a secondary living area for relaxing, dog snuggling, and napping, and put my bed in the little nook off to the side. Inspired by the alcove beds of 18th century France, and the very 19th century idea of a sitting room for the main bedroom, I want this space to evoke the old timey uses of bedrooms of old, but also have room for modern conveniences like a tv and built-in phone chargers.

So, I think that’s it for my week 1 update. Stay tuned for week two, lets see if this accountability thing is all its cracked up to be.

March 17, 2021

Rehab Recap: The Masonry, Part 1

I started this blog to chronicle the rehabilitation of my 1890s house, and damn it that’s what I’m going to do. Even if I am a bit behind with my updates. So, in an effort to get you all up to speed, I’ll be posting my Rehab Recaps, giving an overview of everything that has occurred between the fall and now. What I lack in timeliness I hope to make up for in… something else.

The McLain House retains many of her original features… unfortunately, mortar wasn’t one of them. When I purchased the house, water infiltration through the bricks was by far the primary concern.

Most people, when walking through the house worried about things like missing windows or asked if it was safe to step here or there. But the thing about old houses is… holes in the ceiling don’t just happen, you have to find the root of the problem.

In my case, the root of the problem was the fact that the house hadn’t had functioning gutters in who knows how long. No gutters=no where for the water to run, except down the face of the bricks. When that happens year after year, the mortar, or glue between the bricks, starts to wash away, and compromise the whole structure.

So, before I could address the gutters, major sections of the house needed to be rebuilt. These sections were mostly where the original gutters had fit into the house, leaving gaps, and corners where two planes of the roof met, and water ran down. In these areas, the mortar was so far gone the only thing holding the bricks in place was essentially gravity. Let’s just say deconstruction was not a time intensive part of this process.

The Repairs
Of all the old house tasks, masonry is probably my favorite, but even I know my limits. The front façade of my house has a much finer, red brick face with decorative molded brick, step corbels at the cornice, and very tight, bright white butter joints. In plain English, it’s fancier and more complicated than the rest of the house, because when it was built, the neighboring properties were close enough that the front façade was the only elevation intended to be visible from the street. The fancy stuff went on the front, and the other three sides used any old rough brick, and a big fat common bond. Knowing this, I decided to hire out the front façade work, and a few areas of major relaying, and tackle the rest myself.

The Pros
I worked with Trisco Systems out of Lima, OH, and I couldn’t love them more. Finding quality masons with experience with historic brick that actually want to do the job and won’t cost a fortune is…not easy. I probably met with a dozen masons, getting quotes ranging from 20-65k. If something doesn’t feel right, ALWAYS get more quotes. Call people a little further away then you typically would, and ask everyone you know with an old building who they used. An ounce of prevention (due diligence) is worth a pound of cure (redoing work that you overpaid for/ruined your building/was done by a contractor you hated).
What They Did
The bulk of their work was on the façade, where all of the brick above the stone banding was repointed, and a substantial portion needed to be relayed. Once things got started, it was discovered that even more brick than initially accounted for needed to be replaced, and the price would go up. This was obviously not a happy discovery, but, it underscores my cardinal rule: add 20% to any estimate you get. Especially stuff that requires demo before the work starts (you never know what is being held together by paint, siding, wallpaper, etc.) or anything that just gives you a bad feeling. Add 20%, if you’re still okay with that number, move forward, and if you expect everything will go wrong, you can’t be discouraged.
Anyway, the top course, which would typically be hidden by the box gutters, was replaced with CMU block, no big deal. But the lower courses, which are visible, also needed a significant percentage of brick replacement. This was a bit challenging since most historic brick readily available is the rougher, chunky stuff the rest of the house is made of.
Fortunately, I had access to another brick source, with a more meaningful connection. My boyfriend Dan’s building is another gem in Wheeling, with a rich history and a beautiful turn of the century façade. In the 1960s, the sweeping, two story windows were bricked in with as close a match as could be found. This summer, Dan started his own restoration, removing the infill and leaving me with… all the red brick I could ever want! Even though they’re from the 1960s, these bricks are undetectable from the street view, and it makes me smile every time I look up at them.
Beyond the façade, there were a few others areas of structural concern that I wanted the pros to handle. This was mostly where two walls met to form a corner, or where downspouts had been missing and the damage had permeated the inner wythe (or brick layer) to the inside. Today, most brick we see is applied as a finish, and is nonstructural, but in a true brick house, your bricks are the structure, so keeping them plumb and strong is top priority.
All in all, Trisco was on site for about 10 days, repaired five miscellaneous brick areas (each about 20 square feet), repointed and relayed everything above the stone banding, and patched the decorative brickwork on the façade by hand sculpting about 40 “faux bricks” out of a masonry putty, dyed to match. The final price on this work was $26,000, and if you’re keeping track at home, this was the first major expense of the rehabilitation.
So that’s the deal with the intimidating repairs. I searched long and hard, and found a company I was comfortable with. They fixed the front of my house, and made sure the other sections weren’t in imminent danger. The owner, Tim, and foreman, Allen, were both wonderful resources that not only took care of my house, but respected my knowledge and ability. Whenever I showed them a problem and asked, “but I could probably do that myself right?” they gave me their honest opinion, and 9/10 times a resounding “yes, just shoot us a text if you get stuck”.
By the time they were finished, I had a beautiful front façade, and the motivation to tackle the other three sides of my building. Which will be the topic of my next Rehab Recap, Masonry: Part II (the amateur version)

The Repairs: CMU where the gutter ties in, reconstruction and repointing of the original material, some brick replacement

My source for replacement bricks- The 1960s window infill of the Berry Building

Close up of the sculpted faux bricks. The color will darken to match over time

The Before: Bricks missing, major damage at the cornice

December 15, 2020

Rehab Recap

People often ask what the hardest part of rehabbing the McLain house is, or if there have been any unwanted/unexpected surprises.
Typically, I respond with a rehearsed speech about the importance of due diligence and low expectations, and generally try and emphasize pragmatism when pursuing any historic project.
But the real answer is, the hardest part about rehabbing my 3,400 square foot, 128-year-old, thirty odd years vacant house…is documenting it.
I’m pretty good at project management. The construction projects at the McLain have all stayed on schedule, and anything I slowed down or sped up was by choice not necessity, but the one thing I vowed to do when starting this project- Blog about it, has been sorely neglected.
And while I feel some disappointment for not chronicling every step of the process in real time (check out Instagram stories if that’s what you’re looking for) I do feel grateful that the winter season provides some time to catch up. It’s been a big six months for the McLain House.
So, in an effort to hold myself accountable, or maybe to create my own McLain House Wrapped, I’m committing to catching you all up on what’s been going on before the end of 2020.
Until then, here’s a how it started and how it’s going pic of the old girl. Next, I’ll explain why that blue band at the top of the house is so damn significant.

December 2020 Not her best angle, but we’ve got all the major elements of a dry house happening

May 2020 The sun’s really doing her some favors here but trust, she was busted

November 11, 2020

The History of the House

One of my favorite things about living in an old house is knowing that I am just a piece of the history of that place. While I don’t live in the McLain house yet, I am constantly struck by the generations that came before me. With each room or space that I work on, I wonder how it was experienced in the 1890s, the 1950s, and beyond. This is not the first pandemic my house has witnessed. It has seen countless presidential elections, births, deaths, holidays, bad days and good days. It has also been home to many vibrant, interesting families.

Now being an architectural historian, you would think that I would pour over the historic documents and do extensive research about the history of the house. But alas, I am both lazy and busy, and lucky to have a local preservation organization, The Friends of Wheeling, that has done almost all of that work for me. The history that follows is a condensed version of a report compiled by the Friends’ president, Jeanne Finstein.

The McLains
The House was probably built for Thomas B. McLain around 1892. McLain (1842-1924) was born in Warren, Ohio and came to Wheeling with his parents, John G. and Eliza Ellen Baird McLain, when he was 2 years old. His father was a printer and publisher of the Wheeling Argus, one of the first newspapers in the city, from 1844 until his death in 1849. (Thomas would have been about 7 years old at the time of his father’s death.)

Thomas’s brother Robert began the family’s first drug store in 1856 in a building owned by Dr. Robert W. Hazlett at the corner of 38th and Jacob Streets in Ritchietown (South Wheeling). Thomas worked there as a clerk and errand boy. Around 1860 the McLain brothers established a penny post office in their store. This “proved to be quite remunerative to them and a great accommodation to the townspeople who took advantage of it. People who wanted their mail brought down from the city signed an order to the postmaster to have their mail put into the penny post box, and every morning it was carried down to the drug store, distributed into the proper boxes, and delivered when called for at a charge of a penny for each letter or paper. During this time, the younger brother [Thomas] boarded and lodged at the family residence on North Main Street, between 8th and 9th Streets, and walked to and from the little drug store stopping on the way at the post office for the penny post mail.”

Thomas and his three brothers, Henry B., Robert B., and John G. McLain later opened the McLain Brothers Drug Store in Washington Hall, at the northeast corner of Market and 12th Streets. It was described as one of the most up to date in the city. When Washington Hall was torn down, the McLain Drug Store moved across the street.

By 1890, the three older McLain brothers had retired from the drug business, and in 1893 Thomas, under his physician’s advice, disposed of the drug business. That was around the same time that the house at 115 14th Street was built. Then Thomas and his son James formed the McLain Dental and Surgical Supply Company, located on the 2nd floor of the “McLain block,” corner of Market and 12th Streets. The company kept a “large and varied stock” of artificial teeth and instruments used in dentistry; surgical instruments; and sick room and hospital supplies such as hot water bottles, ice bags, air pillows, bed pans, syringes, sterilizers, and food warmers. “They also made a specialty of renting rolling chairs, invalid beds, air mattresses, chair commodes, and surgical operating tables. A specialty of the firm was truss fitting…They also supplied appliances for deformities of the body, artificial eyes, limbs, arms, and hands…along with instruments to aid the hearing, such as mohair conversation tubes, London hearing horns, hard rubber audiphones fans, black metal ear trumpets, and invisible ear drums.” Every time I take down a wall or pull up a floorboard, I expect to see a glass eye staring back at me. So far, no eyeballs have been discovered.

Thomas McLain lived at 115 14th Street for about ten years. By 1903-4, Wheeling City Directories show his residence as Echo Point. He later lived at 80 North Front Street (1905-6), then 303 South Penn Street beginning around 1907, followed by 416 Richland Avenue (Warwood) beginning around 1919. When he died in 1924 at age 81, his residence was listed as 127 Edgwood Street. His obituary called him “one of the city’s pioneer businessmen and most highly respected citizens.” He was survived by his wife and three children – Mrs. J. Ralph Boyd, Mrs. D.A. Burt, and James L. McLain. He was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

The Horkheimers
Bernard Horkheimer and his wife Estella are listed at 115 14th Street in the 1903-4 City Directory. Horkheimer (c. 1853-1906) was a German immigrant who was in the wool-buying and grocery business with his own brothers and the Baer brothers. The Horkheimer family was very prominent in the Wheeling Jewish community at the time, and two of his nieces (daughters of Morris Horkheimer) married local rabbis who went on to some renown in their later lives. Bernard’s death certificate states that he was “accidentally killed by being crushed between [railroad] cars. He is buried in the Jewish section of Mt. Wood Cemetery. Horkheimer’s widow remained in the house until around 1910.

I have a particular affinity for the Horkheimers for some reason. Estella is one of my favorite names from my favorite classic, Great Expectations, and I get the sense that some of the early design decisions in the house were actually from this time period, not its original construction. I haven’t experienced anything paranormal in the house yet, but I do occasionally ask Estella what she thinks of my choices.

Later Owners
After the Horkheimers, the next resident was Frank C. Swift, whose occupation was shown as broker and then as traveling salesman in the 1917 and 1920 City Directories. I think Frank C Swift is the best name for a travelling salesman possibly ever, and for that reason I am also fond of him. Swift was followed by Rev. Pliny Brokan Ferris and his wife Alice. Ferris was the pastor of 2nd Presbyterian Church. Deed records indicate that church trustees owned the property during this period. When the Second Presbyterian church was demolished in the 2010s, windows from the building were salvaged by the Wilsons and installed in the dining room.

Subsequent residents/owners included veterinarian Leon Reefer (and his wife Josephine), who apparently used the house as both an office and residence from around 1928 until his death from pulmonary tuberculosis on January 1, 1935. Daniel H. and Edna Manners were the next residents (1936-1946). Manners worked as office manager for Hygrade Food Products and later as a purchasing agent for the John Wenzel Company, meat packing.

The Antonuccis
The Antonucci family then lived at this address and 115 ½ (or 115a and 115b) from 1946 until the late 1980s. The split address came from the rooms rented on the second and third floors. Owners Carl and Mary did not have children, and converted the first floor to their living quarters, and rented space upstairs. Carl Antonucci was a millworker at Wheeling Steel. Mary was a talented cook and baker, and worked at a local bakery. They both walked to work, and never owned a car. East Wheeling during this period was heavily populated with Italian immigrants, and the family of Mary Antonucci occupied 113 (next to the McLain House) and 126 ½, just up the street. Mary and Carl were well known throughout the neighborhood for their gardens and Sunday dinners.

The Vacant Years
From the 1980s on, the McLain house appears to have been vacant. The inheritor of the Antonucci’s is not well known, and never lived in the house. Neighbors remember a few owners who never occupied to house, and then a long stretch of vacancy. While much of the historic fabric of the house remains, it was during this time that the stained glass transom windows on the front of the house were removed.

The Wilsons
Brian and Stephanie Wilson owned the McLain house from 2013 until I purchased it from them in May 2020. The Wilsons saved the McLain house from demolition, and began the restoration process with extensive structural repairs to the basement, updating systems, and acquiring the lot next door. Both trained at the Belmont Restoration Program, the Wilsons are true preservationists that brought the house back from the brink. They also saved the tiny house from demolition, relocated it to the back yard, and incorporated several pieces of local salvage into the design. I am so grateful for the time and effort they spent on the house, and consider them both friends.

And then there was Me
The first time I saw the McLain house was Labor Day weekend, 2019. My friend Stephanie was visiting from Virginia, and I was taking her on a walking tour of the architecture of Wheeling, because I am an insufferable host that relentlessly imposes my interests on anyone around me. I had never really noticed this house before, so we stopped in front and I said how much I liked it, and I wonder who owns it. My now neighbor Donna overheard me, and immediately filled me in on the situation. Brian and Stephanie and I had many mutual friends, so a facebook message later we set up a viewing.

I walked through the house for the first time over Thanksgiving, again over Christmas, and then began a long process of due diligence and financing. Throw in a pandemic to slow things down a bit, it was a long process. I closed on May 28th 2020, and started work in the next month.

The longer I own the house, the more people and memories surface. It’s been wonderful to hear the recollections of neighbors and descendants, and I only hope this fountain of knowledge continues.

September 29, 2020

The First Project I Tackled at the McLain House

Why Worry About Gardening?
I closed on the McLain house on May 28th, 2020. Spring was inching into summer, and I had a whole season of work ahead of me. So, what was the first project I tackled? Window repairs? Raccoon eviction? Waterproofing? None of the above. The first project I tackled at my 3,400 square foot, three level, ivy covered monster of a house wasn’t even about the house. It was about gardening
And not just any garden. Pretty, raised, painted garden beds. I wanted decorative finials on the corners, and to feel like Ina Garten in the Hamptons, picking heirloom tomatoes, instead of regular Betsy picking mint because it’s the only thing that grows, in East Wheeling.
And while those romantic gardening fantasies were an influence, why I really chose to make container gardens my first project instead of countless other, more pressing tasks, was because I wanted to make a statement. I wanted people in the neighborhood to walk by and see something was different.
This was important to me because The McLain House is in East Wheeling, a neighborhood that has historically been underserved and underappreciated. It’s a neighborhood that suffered the effects of Urban Renewal, and the decimation of community in favor of roadways in the mid-century. It’s a neighborhood where historic homes have fallen into disrepair, and raze or repair orders have become all too common. My own side yard once contained a historic Italianate brick home that raised countless generations. Sometime in the mid-2000s that home was demolished, leaving an empty lot, later parceled in with the McLain house.
I wanted my neighbors to know something different was beginning to take place. The empty lot beside my vacant house was empty no more. And it is a yard, with mowed grass and garden beds, not an empty space owned and cared for by no one. This was no longer a short cut from 14th to the alley, it was a place where someone was doing something (although you’re still welcome to cut through my yard anytime and stop and say hi).

How I Made Them
The dirty little secret about container gardening is that its not *that* cheap. Buying dimensional lumber and soil and plants and so on can easily turn a simple project into an expense on par with an actual weekend getaway. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather spend my extra cash on weekend trips with cocktails and a hot tub, not compost and treated lumber. Disclaimer about this approach: you do get what you pay for. I got attractive, functional garden beds that will not be featured by any woodworking magazine anytime soon. If cedar that will last forever and hand chiseled joints are your jam, that’s great. I however, want cute, manageable, and a project I can actually finish and not agonize over.
So first, I found some salvageable wood. I am extremely fortunate that my boyfriend also bought an old building in Wheeling, that just so happened to have been a cabinet shop, where salvaged materials are abundant. But if you are not in that position, simply begin wood hoarding, and you’ll soon have your own supply. Seriously, dumpster dive, look for people gutting houses, you name it, people are always throwing away perfectly good lumber. Take it, hoard it, thank me later.

I managed to find sixteen pieces of six-foot-long by about 10’’ wide boards, and a handful of square-ish pieces to nail to. The process was simple: Stack two boards, screw into a square vertical piece on the interior used for support, then repeat until you have a square. Once I had a square, I added some decorative finials from woodpecker supply to the corners, painted the entire thing with the heaviest white exterior paint I could find, and called it a day. One of the two beds got a divider running down the middle initially for support, but later I found this helped keep plants in their rightful spots.
Once the paint dried, I took the beds to the house, picked a spot where they’d be visible but out of the way of mowing, and plopped them down. I put newspaper down to deter weeds, then a good layer of sticks and miscellaneous vegetation, and then some compost. Luckily the back patio had several years of decomposing leaves available, so that was shoveled up and dumped in. This filled the beds about 1/3 of the way, and a truckload of dirt from a local landscaping company was enough to fill them the rest of the way, and top with mulch. I got my plants locally, from two wonderful organizations, Russell Nesbitt Services and Grow Ohio Valley.
Russell Nesbitt provides lifestyle opportunities to adults with disabilities, and their seasonal greenhouse provides skills training and employment opportunities for the individuals they work with. They grow the best starter plants, maintain a greenhouse in downtown Wheeling, and the proceeds go directly back into the organization’s programming. I bought tomato, pepper, brussels sprouts and herb starters from them.
Grow Ohio Valley is a local nonprofit organization rethinking the way we approach food justice and access to fresh produce and local groceries. They opened the Public Market last October, brining fresh, local food to downtown Wheeling and addressing a food desert. I purchased Zinnia and mixed wildflower seeds there.

The Harvest
Now, looking back over the past three months, I can’t say everything I planted was a success. I still contend with an enormous groundhog that lives under the mini house, and feasts on my tomatoes. I was able to enjoy fresh herbs all summer, making Mojitos right in the backyard with my mint. On several occasions I brought fresh floral arrangements as hostess gifts, and nothing made me happier than knowing my friend Jenna down the street picked herself a bouquet one day while she was out walking the dog. One day my neighbor Donna, who has lived on 14th street for nearly 50 years, told me she remembered the old Italian couple that owned the McLain house in the 1960s and 70s, growing huge, elaborate gardens that fragranced the whole neighborhood.
And that is why my container gardens are so important to me. They brought life back into a long quiet space. Friends picking flowers, neighbors remembering their neighbor’s grape vines. It’s about people in a neighborhood that often gets brushed off, seeing that their community is special, and that a piece of it will be tended with care.

July 10, 2020

Welcome

Hi there, I’m Betsy. Welcome to my website/blog/portfolio/dog photo album. I started this blog because I bought a house. A big, old, falling apart house. And it seems like if you’re going to buy a big, old, falling apart house that will nearly bankrupt you, you should chronicle it for the masses in the hopes of becoming a #lowespartner.

So how did I get here? Well, for as long as I can remember, I’ve loved old things. One of the greatest motivations in my adolescent life was simply to go beyond the velvet rope and see the upstairs of every museum. This fascination with the unseen parts of old buildings eventually led to my degrees in Anthropology, Art History, and Historic Preservation. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Main Streets, History and Landmark Foundations, and one very impactful position at James Madison’s Montpelier. In 2018, I decided to change pace, and relocate to Wheeling, WV.

Wheeling is a major character in this blog, because it is where, as Director of Heritage Programming for the Wheeling National Heritage Area, I am able to combine my love of technical preservation and cultural heritage interpretation. Seriously, it’s a dream job. Wheeling is a small city with big amenities, undergoing a revitalization that I’m thrilled to be a part of. It is also where I’ve purchased the aforementioned big, old, falling apart house. Said house (second only perhaps to my perfect dog Marshall) will be getting a lot of air time on this platform.

But I hope this platform becomes more than just an old house blog. My intention is to create a space for those interested to read my thoughts and experiences in community development, and place-making, and heritage studies AND rehabbing a big, old, falling apart house. And also dogs and yoga and food and flowers. A lifestyle blog if you will, written by someone that hates lifestyle blogs.

So if that sounds like fun, come on in. I promise I’ll never ask you to take your shoes off.

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